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Re: 5/8 gone

When I started seeing them on multiple bees during an inspection and then later starting to find deformed wings. This was late summer, the beginning of August for the uptick in mite observation and mid/late August for the DWV to show symptoms. I am sure that the increase happened before, but I did not notice it at the time.

Re: 5/8 gone

I think it was the combo of mites and weather. These hive all made last winter just fine, but it was much milder.
Observe, and make sure they had plenty of stores going into the winter. By the time I knew the situation was dire, it was to late in the year to do something like break the brood cycle (I thought). In the future I would, because there was nothing to lose. In addition after the main flow I plan to break any troubled hive into nucs, for over wintering. But that is hind site. I also may insulate better, but I had them on top entrances reduced to 1 inch, with 2 inches of foam insulating the top of the hive. I may look at strapping foam all around the hive, but that is more work than I wanted to do. They do have a wind break and the hives were sealed up well.

They set up 7 separate beeyards in different states with 30 hives each….started from package bees in the spring of 2009. A total of 210 colonies. They were fed as needed but otherwise untreated.
The first season losses ranged from around 3% (1 hive) to 40% (12 hives).
It appears that by the end of season three, 5 colonies out of the initial 210 remained.

Dan www.boogerhillbee.com
Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards

Re: 5/8 gone

I would thinking looking east to more continental weather pattern rather than the Olympics. I would go to the peninsula for bees because mine wear rain coats most of the year, yours need parka’s and dog sleds. A lot of talk about robbing of the die outs bringing the vermin back to your remaining hives, I was curious if you were taking action against that or your thoughts?

“Why do we fall, sir? So that we might learn to pick ourselves up” Alfred Pennyworth Batman Begins (2005)

Re: 5/8 gone

Originally Posted by minz

I would thinking looking east to more continental weather pattern rather than the Olympics. I would go to the peninsula for bees because mine wear rain coats most of the year, yours need parka’s and dog sleds. A lot of talk about robbing of the die outs bringing the vermin back to your remaining hives, I was curious if you were taking action against that or your thoughts?

Northern queens from the Midwest or Northeast would be a good idea. Any suggestions on TX free queens from that region? As to transmitting diseases to the other hives, they died out late enough in the fall that there is not much flying weather. Now they are lucky to have enough time for cleansing flights, and the mites are long dead.

Re: 7/8 gone

Well this sucks. We finally warmed up and I went out to check on the bees. 2 more down, these were first year hives. So far only the TBH is still going. All had stores left, just out of reach in the cold snap we had. I will go out and a proper postmortem later to see what happened. These did not have DW or visible mites in the fall, built up well and had good stores going into the winter (I thought).

The lesson here is there can be many more mites than you see. Or in fact, it would be more accurate to say there WILL be many more mites than you see.
Don't know what killed your bees, but sending a hive into winter with just an eyeball check for mites, is taking a great risk.

Yep I will have to do sugar rolls next year. I was checking the bottom boards, and they seemed fine.

Re: 7/8 gone

Just ordered some queens from Olympic Wilderness Apiary. Judy was very helpful and pleasant when I spoke to her. It sounds good and hopefully they will work well next late summer for my over winter nucs.

Re: 7/8 gone

I send mine south for the winter on vacation in the Almonds. Seems to help. Also don't need to keep getting winter jackets for all of them. Ever tried to fit winter jackets on that many girls, all they do is complain about the color. But, seriously sending them to almonds seems to help.

Re: 5/8 gone

I went into the winter with three mature hives that will be two years old in April and three nucs that were put together last July. All of my hives are doing well as of yesterday. I am totally treatment free, and I am not going to ever do a mite count. I figure if I'm not going to treat, why do I care about counting them.

We had a good spring last year and my old hives built up well. Then there was a long, dry summer with no growth due to there being very little storage. We had a big September rain and down came the blooms. My bees then prospered in numbers and in honey and pollen storage. I did not feed my bees as they had plenty of stores. It is my dream to raise treatment free bees without feeding them. Time will tell!

Re: 5/8 gone

Originally Posted by lazy shooter

I am totally treatment free, and I am not going to ever do a mite count. I figure if I'm not going to treat, why do I care about counting them.

That was my thought, however I am reconsidering it. If I know there is a heavy mite load in the summer, after the main flow, I think I will use those hives to create my nucs. If I use my better hives (assuming I have some) to raise queens in the nucs (or bought queens) I will have broken the reproductive cycle of the mites and hopefully knocked down the population. Since I am planning on making up nucs to overwinter anyway, this seems to be a logical approach to meet both needs.

Re: 5/8 gone

Being treatment free is no reason not to know what mite levels are. One needs to know if the queen has or is expressing the traits required to keep mite levels down. If she does not have enough VSH or whatever else, then something something will have to bee done or the hive will die every time.

Re: 5/8 gone

there have been quite a few accounts of apparently strong hives in the summer dying out in the fall and winter, presumably due to mites that had not been detected.

when i hear about multiple hives dying out, it make me think that the infestation spread from one hive to the others. resistant stock can only handle so much.

if your treatment free approach is to subject your bees to as much stress as possible in order to kill off any that can't make it on their own, then mite counts don't make much sense. losses are expected, perhaps even welcomed, as good riddance of the unworthy genetics.

for me, mite counts will help me stay treatment free be giving me a clue as to which colonies are not handling the mites as well as their cohorts. i like the idea of requeening the troubled colonies or busting them up into nucs with new queens.

rio, if you make nucs out of the ones that have high mite counts, you may want to consider making them queenless, letting most of the brood hatch, and doing a good sugar dusting before requeening.

journaling the growth of a treatment free apiary started in 2010. 20+/- hives

Re: 5/8 gone

Originally Posted by JBJ

Being treatment free is no reason not to know what mite levels are. One needs to know if the queen has or is expressing the traits required to keep mite levels down. If she does not have enough VSH or whatever else, then something something will have to bee done or the hive will die every time.

BTW Oldtimers last post is spot on.

Yep, lesson learned.

Originally Posted by squarepeg

rio, if you make nucs out of the ones that have high mite counts, you may want to consider making them queenless, letting most of the brood hatch, and doing a good sugar dusting before requeening.